Too Tired to Shine

At some point, the mask always slips and the disguise comes off. The one she’s carefully crafted over decades. Flawless on the surface, tailored to every social cue, and cracks just enough to let the truth bleed through. She has been performing for so long, she could hardly notice the effort anymore. She knows when to smile, when to frown, and when to stay silent while the room erupts around her. She has worn the mask so well that she forgets it’s there.

But today is different. Today, she’s slipping. Today, she wanted to quit, just for today. She considered one day of rest, of solitude, and of peace. She wished for these things, not knowing what they looked like.

Give her an hour. Let her fall apart. Let the grief thunder through her without interruption. Let there be rage. She doesn’t grieve in silence, tucked under blankets with tissues and dim light. She grieves in noise. Mourns in screams. There is rage at the betrayal of her body. She screams not for attention, but because it hurts to keep it in.

And then… she rebuilds. Over and over.

The armor she built, piece by piece, is melting. And with it, her composure. She screams, “I can’t do this again.” She cries to be reduced to atoms, scattered into nothing, so that she doesn’t have to keep rebuilding from the rubble. In that quiet, terrifying unraveling, she doesn’t want strength. She doesn’t want resilience. She wants out. Out of the matrix.

What does life look like without the need to hide in plain sight? Disappointment usually gets shrugged off as a nod, a "next time," a private resolution to do better. Traditionally, she always used failure as fuel, something to refine the act, sharpen the smile, tighten the seams of the mask. But today, she met disappointment not with reflection, but with fire. Something ignited inside, hot, urgent, uncontrollable. Most may not look at a catastrophe or injury as a failure, but she did.

She was that little girl all over again. A girl with glue sticks and glitter pens, building her first disguise. A little girl who wants to be anything but what they have renamed her as. A little girl who wants to fade into the background, but the world has become a stage with bright lights cast upon her. Back then, she was powerless, uncertain. But now? Now, an adult who’s perfected the art of pretending. Calm. Collected. Resilient. That word again.

Resiliency is exhausting.

No one wants admiration for how well they carry the weight. They want you to see who they are, despite what they’ve survived, not because of it. She wants credit for the work, not the wounds. Where does the willingness to keep up on going come from? Do any of us? She felt it slipping through her fingers like gravel. She was hanging off the edge by a thread. She wanted to quit.

She’s hidden from the world so well that even she forgets the parts that hurt. She’s become so practiced at being “resilient” that when the ground cracks beneath her, she almost doesn’t recognize the fall. Fall, what an ironic word. But this time, the weight is too much. The performance falters. The mask slips. And the truth, raw and molten, pours out.

Another trauma. Another injury. Another catastrophe stacked on a tower already swaying. She has learned to expect it, even prepare for it. When disaster becomes routine, your brain stops flinching. You learn to anticipate the fall, not prevent it. You become immune to the shock.

But this one… this one feels like too much. Like the final piece in a game of Jenga, teetering.

She’s tired of rebuilding. Tired of rising. Tired of trying to shine like something new after every collapse. Can’t she just be broken, just for a little while? Can’t she rest while the world keeps spinning? Why is she always expected to be on the frontlines?

Defeat is bitter. Harder still when the enemy is your own body. She’s lived a lifetime of battles against only herself. She knows the mechanics of injury, the cadence of recovery. She knows what can be stitched and braced, splinted, and what can’t.

She wishes her body peace. In the quiet moments, she wishes for stillness. For silence. For an end to the constant ache of becoming.

In the night, she makes small promises. She will get through this. She will reboot. She will flush the sadness from my system like clearing the cache on a worn-out machine. Replace old thoughts with the new. She will become new and rise.

She will always be the girl behind the mask. The girl who, in secret, craves rest and softness and solitude. But the world didn’t give her silk. It gave her iron and stone. And from that, she built armor. She learned to perform. To transform. To survive. Within all the madness, she has built the ability to not only stand but to thrive within it.

You wouldn’t expect her to quit. Not me. Not her.

She doesn’t need you to call her brave. She wants you to see the cost.

With every piece of grief, Ishe forges something new. A shinier plate. A sharper edge. But no matter how far she goes, she can’t go back to a body untouched. She carries the scars. She is the story. She can’t return to the version of her that once believed she could outrun her own body.

And still, I wonder: if the world ever offered her gentleness, true gentleness, could she accept it? Would she even recognize it? If she’s trained her whole life for battle, could she lay down the sword?

I’m not sure.

She keeps going. Not because she never wanted to quit. But because, on the days she nearly did, she found something just enough, a breath, a hope, a glimmer, to keep her tethered to the chase for what else might still be out there.